CASE STUDY

Who Was “A MOURNER”?

Which colonial patriot penned the VINDEX essay in
the January 8, 1770, issue of The Boston Gazette and
Country Journal? Who wrote the 12 contested Federalist
papers? Such questions about authorship of unattributed
documents are one of the many problems confronting
historians. Statistical analyses, when combined with other
historical facts, often help resolve these mysteries.
One such historical conundrum is the identity of the
writer known simply as A MOURNER. A letter appeared
in the February 26, 1770, issue of The Boston Gazette and
Country Journal. The text of the letter is as follows:
The general Sympathy and Concern for the
Murder of the Lad by the base and infamous
Richardson on the 22d Instant, will be sufficient
position. This assumption somewhat narrows the field of
Reason for your Notifying the Public that he will
possible writers.
be buried from his Father’s House in Frogg Lane,
Ordinarily, a statistical analysis of the frequencies
opposite Liberty-Tree, on Monday next, when all
of various words contained in the contested document,
the Friends of Liberty may have an Opportunity
when compared with frequency analyses for known
of paying their last Respects to the Remains
authors, would permit an identity inference to be drawn.
of this little Hero and first Martyr to the noble
Unfortunately, in this case, the letter is too short for this
Cause—Whose manly Spirit (after this Accident
strategy to be useful. Another possibility is based on the
happened) appear'd in his discreet Answers to his
frequencies of word lengths. In this instance, a simple count
Doctor, his Thanks to the Clergymen who prayed
of letters is generated for each word in the document.
with him, and Parents, and while he underwent the
Proper names, numbers, abbreviations, and titles are
greatest Distress of bodily Pain; and with which
removed from consideration, because these do not represent
he met the King of Terrors. These Things, together
normal vocabulary use. Care must be taken in choosing
with the several heroic Pieces found in his Pocket,
comparison texts, since colonial publishers habitually
particularly Wolfe’s Summit of human Glory, gives
incorporated their own spellings into the essays they
Reason to think he had a martial Genius, and
printed. Therefore, it is desirable to get comparison texts
would have made a clever Man.
from the same printer the contested material came from.
A MOURNER.
The following table contains the summary analysis
The Lad the writer refers to is Christopher Sider, for six passages printed in The Boston Gazette and
an 11-year-old son of a poor German immigrant. Young Country Journal in early 1770. The Tom Sturdy (probably
Sider was shot and killed on February 22, 1770, in a civil a pseudonym) text was included because of the use of
disturbance involving schoolboys, patriot supporters of the phrase “Friends of Liberty,” which appears in A
the nonimportation agreement, and champions of the MOURNER’s letter, as opposed to the more familiar
English crown. This event preceded the bloody Boston “Sons of Liberty.” John Hancock, James Otis, and Samuel
Massacre by just a couple of weeks. Of Sider’s funeral, John Adams are included because they are well-known patriots
Adams wrote, “My eyes never beheld such a funeral. The who frequently wrote articles that were carried by the
Procession extended further than can be well imagined.” Boston papers. In the case of Samuel Adams, the essay
(Diary of John Adams entry for 1770. MONDAY FEB. 26 used in this analysis was signed VINDEX, one of his
OR THEREABOUTS.) many pseudonyms. The table presents three summaries of
From a historical perspective, the identity of A work penned by Adams. The first two originate from two
MOURNER remains a mystery. However, it seems clear separate sections of the VINDEX essay. The last summary
from the letter’s text that the author supported the patriot is a compilation of the first two.

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Summary Statistics of Word Length from Sample Passages by Various

Potential Authors of the Letter Signed A MOURNER
Tom John James Samuel Samuel Samuel
Sturdy Hancock Otis Adams-1 Adams-2 Adams-1 & 2
Mean 4.08 4.69 4.58 4.60 4.52 4.56
Median 4 4 4 3 4 4
Mode 2 3 2 2 2 2
Standard deviation 2.17 2.60 2.75 2.89 2.70 2.80
Sample variance 4.70 6.76 7.54 8.34 7.30 7.84
Range 13 9 14 12 16 16
Minimum 1 1 1 1 1 1
Maximum 14 10 15 13 17 17
Sum 795 568 842 810 682 1492
Count 195 121 184 176 151 27

1. Acting as a historical detective, generate a data set
consisting of the length of each word used in the letter
signed by A MOURNER. Be sure to disregard any
text that uses proper names, numbers, abbreviations,
or titles.
2. Calculate the summary statistics for the letter’s word
lengths. Compare your findings with those of the
known authors, and speculate about the identity of
A MOURNER.
3. Compare the two Adams summaries. Discuss the
viability of word-length analysis as a tool for resolving
disputed documents.
4. What other information would be useful to identify
A MOURNER?

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